MSPmentor

In case you couldn’t join us for MSPmentor Live: CEO Exchange on June 25 and June 12, both webcasts are now archived and available for your on-demand viewing. Simply visit the MSPmentor Event Center to access the webcasts. Read More >

So, you want to launch a small business or reposition your company as a managed service provider (MSP). What steps can you take to maximize your chances for success? I’ve written a four-part blog to cover that very question. Tune in each day this week for the next chapter. Here’s part 1: Finding the right partner to co-launch your business.

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Software as a service (SaaS) may represent the future of IT, but MSPmentor’s SaaS 20 Stock Index continues to slide downward like the rest of Wall Street. While the Dow is approaching bear market territory — down nearly 20% from its October 2007 high — the SaaS 20 Stock Index has slid 16.38% in 2008 and 3.63% for the week ended June 27.

By comparison, the Dow gave up 4.19 percent, the S&P shed 3 percent and the Nasdaq fell 3.76 percent, according to the Associated Press.

For the week, only three of our 20 index members (Athenahealth, +0.20%; Blackboard, +1.94%; and Kenexa, +5.80%) posted gains. The index’s biggest one-week losers were EMC (-10.43%), Omniture (-10.15%) and Amazon.com (-7.94%).

Here’s more about our weekly winners and losers.

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Intuit, a member of our SaaS 20 Stock Index, is cutting 7 percent of its staff (or about 575 positions). The move reflects Intuit’s accelerating shift to software as a service (SaaS). Indeed, the company plans to move even faster from packaged software to online services, social networking and mobile technologies, according to the Associated Press.

Ironically, another SaaS 20 Stock Index member — NetSuite — positions itself as a logical replacement for Intuit’s traditional desktop accounting and small business software.

Although immensely hyped, the SaaS industry isn’t without its challenges. Read More >

PartnerPedia — a new social network for managed service providers and VARs — is set to launch in July. The site is the latest online community that allow MSPs and IT service providers to network, collaborate and outsource work to one another.

However, PartnerPedia is different from vendor-driven IT communities, MSP association sites, and online marketplaces for VARs. Here’s why.

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The results of a new survey, from Quocirca, suggest that small businesses in the United Kingdom are not very happy with their managed bandwidth services.

I work across the big pond in New York, but I can relate to these survey results. According to TMCnet, which recapped the survey outcomes:

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Dell made a subtle but important move when the company announced storage management and data protection services on June 25.

Within the press release, which focused on Dell’s infrastructure consulting services, the company including this little note to partners and managed service providers: Read More >

We are accepting nominations for our MSPmentor 250 until the close of Friday, June 27, eastern time. Note: If you’d like to submit multiple nominations, you may need to clear your Web browser’s cache after each survey submission.

The final MSPmentor 250 list and report — featuring business, technology, marketing and other types of MSP thought leaders from across the globe — will be unveiled July 28.

For a look at many (but not all…) of the current nominees and for more information, check out our MSPmentor 250 Center.